this is a big question?

[Dixies_fire]

Okay everyone here is familiar with difficult child's everyone here knows what mental illness is the things it does what the wrong medications can do, I need some input. We were all born with difficult child's and have had to make the best of the situation, be their advocate when we could, help them through their trials all of that.

I know many people here have had a difficult child spouse. Many people know some of what I have been going through with hubs.

About 85-90% of the time he is good/ great. Good husband good dad, good step dad. He cooks, helps with the baby, cleans up when asked, feeds boyo breakfast when I am tied up with baby and honestly lately that is most of the time. Doesn't complain, tells me I'm beautiful daily. Doesn't give me hell when I am tired, is concerned for my welfare and if I am eating enough, should I take a nap, do I have a fever? Has supported my kids when my ex does not, doesn't make an issue about it. Many women would love a husband like this. What I mean by 85-90 percent of the time is maybe one day in two weeks he has trouble, he will be all of these Things the rest of the time. He was pretty decent all together for for about two months since the incident which was in February. medications were shaky at first, got good medications was decent man.

They have been adjusting his medications over the past month or so they are decreasing seraquil and increasing the abilify because seraquil makes him go to sleep at 8pm or so. He has to take it at 6pm so he can make it to work by 6:30 and wake up in a timely fashion. He hates that part and by increasing abilify and weaning from seraquil they feel abilify will do the same job.
He has been switching the medication for a month like I said and pretty solidly for three weeks I believe he has rarely been taking his seraquil, this is a guess not a known fact. We've had a couple of major blow ups about three times in the past three weeks. No violence just a lot of heated fighting and very bad words.
He was removed from the house again today because we argued I left the house before it got to bad and he jumped in the car am followed me as I walked down the street, was loud and yelling on post in front of people.
He says mean things to me and I have a real problem just keeping my mouth shut an letting in blow over because the things he says hurt, some of the decisions he makes are wrong ones .

This argument we had today was over $10.00 or so we are extremely broke right this second and I had to pawn some jewelry a few days ago, not my wedding set or anything big but some things I have had for a pretty long time. I get in the car to go to the store for the first time in a few days and the car that I cleaned very recently was littered with 5hr energy drinks and goodies medicine powders. 5hr energy drinks are 2.50 at the store there were approximately 10 of them. I was a bit miffed because this is like 20.00 worth of energy drinks why in the hell am I pawning jewelry for energy drinks when I needed to go to the store and buy diaper wipes etc etc. I went inside and I asked him, calmly without being loud or mean really when and how he had money to buy all those drinks he said I told him he could buy some I said I had told him he could buy 1 I said I needed diaper wipes he said he didn't know about it at the time I said that was not true because I have said something for the past 4 days about needing them. He blew up and was losing it and I walked out the door with the baby to cool off and try not to say anything else. He followed me yelled at me going down the street, got out a couple of times and asked me to go home but he was still being mean so I kept walking. Cops were called etc etc. bad things are probably going to happen with his unit. I can't do anything about that.
I feel responsible because I can't just keep my mouth shut I feel totally responsible because I feel like I treat him as a normal wife treats a normal husband and I forget that that isn't the case this was a small issue that should not have been blown out of proportion and I feel like its my fault.


I love him and I know he loves me and I know because I've seen him a lot recently that the man I married lives in that skull.
But I am at a loss. Is this worth it? This is so hard and so stressful and has been going on the whole journey since November the incident was in February that was the catalyst for getting help and a awful lot of great improvement over what life was like before the incident. So many people have such a hard time with detachment how and why am I putting myself through this willingly? Should I keep going or find a way to leave? I don't think he would continue to be mostly well if I left I think he would probably fall apart because he is trying to pull it together for our baby and our marriage and my kids. I want your honest thoughts and opinions and will not get offended..

 

[SuZir]

You are in really tough and stressful situation. One thing you have to keep in mind is, that you are not responsible of his well being, you have kids and yourself to worry first. So how he would do if you left shouldn't be part of equation.

He really seems like good guy and good husband and father most of the time and before his sickness. Thing is that those kind of blow ups, even irregular are extremely taxing for you and very bad for the kids. If that would be, what it will be always in future, I would advice you to leave. But of course he is middle of finding right medications, his work situation is extremely stressful, your financial situation is stressful, he is just in very rough patch right now and things could turn much better again in future.

Maybe you shouldn't decide right now? Keep making choices that will keep both options open in future. Keep also mentally preparing for both staying and leaving. And give yourself a deadline to decide, because it is easy to get stuck when there seems to be hope in future and then notice that you stayed in bad situation for 10 or 30 years and are bitter. Maybe you could decide, that you need significant improvement before June 2014. If there hasn't been any, that is when you leave for separate ways.

Just my two cents. I'm sorry you and your husband are having such a hard time right now.

 

[BusynMember]

Hi, hon.

Nobody can tell you whether to leave or stay. If there is a Codapendents Anynamous group near you, that may help you learn how to detach and take care of yourself and your kids, letting him make his own choices. I am going to Al-Anon, which is similar, because of my oldest child and I'm getting my life back. It was getting to the point that my whole life was becoming wrapped around my mentally ill, abusive, dysfunctional son and his problems and I was losing myself. But I went to CODA because my physically ill first husband was really mean to me and I thought I had to put up with it because he was sick. I didn't know that even the ill do not have a right to abuse others.

You can try NAMI too (National Alliance for the Mentally Ill), but I think that NAMI is more an advocate group for those who have mental illness, however I have never been able to get to a NAMI meeting. Our NAMI is pretty far from here and the meetings are too late for me. So I'm not sure if that would be helpful to you or not.

If there is no CODA there, I highly recommend going for help at a low to no charge mental health clinic to learn to take care of yourself and detach from your husband when he is abusive. After you get your footing, you can decide what you want to do in the long term.

Gentle hugs.

 

[Hound dog]

(((hugs)))

Fred and I were married 28 yrs. We were soul mates, fit together like a hand and a glove. It was love at first sight, literally. We were best friends. I loved him with everything I had and he loved me the same way.

Fred was also a full blown difficult child, although it took some years for me to figure that out. He was autistic. The gene for autism is very strong in his family. High functioning for the most part, but still very autistic.

As you can imagine, it created problems. A LOT of problems. These problems were made worse because mother in law, good intentions aside, enabled behavior that created many of the problems.

Fred could be the most loving, gentle, affectionate, attentive person.......he was generous to a fault. On the flip side, he could also slide into his own world and somewhat "forget" those around him existed. He had very compulsive behaviors......and I can't think of one of them that was good. His solution to problems were to pretend they didn't exist. He procrastinated to the point that nearly drove me insane. Yet not a day went by that he didn't tell me at least a half dozen times that he loved me.......and meant it with all of his heart.

I will tell you truthfully that if I were not the stubborn person that I am, if I had not made a vow to make my marriage work "until death do us part", if I had not loved the man so very deeply.........it most likely would not have made it past the first 5-7 yrs. Shoot, I know most women would have bailed within the first 6 months.

I had to learn creative ways to deal with the difficult child behaviors while focusing on the man beyond the gfgness. That was hard to do and it took years to do it.

Fred was totally irresponsible with money for years and years to the point where having utilities shut off was a regular event and I learned how to do without phone, lights, heat, water much more than I ever wanted to know. I took the finances completely away from him. His name was on the bank account, but money never stayed in that account long enough for him to have access to it. I paid bills, I did the budget, and he did not have spending money. If he needed gas or something I was there when he paid for it. Stunk. But it solved the problem. Sometimes he would sneak money........I learned to hide it well, sometimes so well I wouldn't find it again for about a year. lol (I can laugh now) At one point he was using mother in law for money he couldn't get from me.........and that nearly did end our marriage. I not only called him to the carpet.......I drug him to his mother and made him confess what he'd been doing to her for years....using me as his excuse. ugh That stopped it totally. mother in law no longer enabled. After my accident he had no choice but to take over the finances. I told him flat out if he missed one payment on anything (no excuses) he was out the door and I was filing for divorce. He never missed any.........except when unemployed and well, I couldn't fault him for that.

I discovered early in that while Fred was a loving dad, he could not parent. He could not be consistent in the least. It was either far too severe or far too lax. He'd bellow like an enraged bear at the kids......then have to apologize later. He'd ground them for 6 months and retract it when he calmed down 5 mins later. So while I didn't like it one bit, I was the boss when it came to parenting, he was my back up. He did no discipline. It worked much better that way for everyone.

Over 28 yrs there were a million little things. I had to learn to cope with each and every one of them, which often required thinking outside of the box. I had to teach myself how to react to certain behaviors in order to handle them better because often Fred simply could not change his reactions to situations. If I blew up at everything he did I'd have needed a padded room myself in short order. Know what I mean?? I couldn't change Fred. I had to learn, instead to change myself and my reactions.

Was it worth it?

It was hard. Sometimes it was h*ll. There were moments I came awfully close to walking away and throwing up my hands. For me? It was worth the work. No one told me marriage was a fairytale. No one told me it was easy. So I never had those expectations. I noticed with my mom that every relationship that she had when things got "hard" she found a way to end it. I don't recall her ever trying to work through a tough spot and find a solution. It was just easier to bail. My grandma taught me that the things in this life that are truly worth it you have to work hard to have, they never are just handed to you.

I got to spend 28 yrs with my best friend, my soulmate. I wish I'd been able to spend 28 more years with him. No regrets. None.

Fred loved and accepted me for the person I am, utterly, from the beginning. (and trust me, I'm so far from perfect it is not funny) I loved him, but I had to learn to accept him for the person he was both the good and the bad. I look at this sentence and I think of the irony in it. Yet it sums it up perfectly.

No one can tell you if it is "worth it" or not. Only you will be able to answer that question for yourself. None of us are perfect, easy child or difficult child. We all have our faults. I personally believe that people give up too easily these days. It's just too darn easy to throw up your hands and walk away. Love is not enough, a long relationship is a lot of hard work. You have to be willing to do the work to keep it going. That is why without love it doesn't work, love is the motivator. Your husband has his limitations. You have yours. You have to learn to work together to enhance each other instead of clashing.

In your posts it sounds as if your husband truly loves you and the kids. You seem to know that. You also sound as if you truly love him. It seems at this point both of you are trying. That says a lot right there. husband is not stable right now, more so since they're adjusting his medications. It is going to affect his behavior. It doesn't excuse it, but it explains it. You're both under tremendous stress right now, which is going to make everything seem worse. (trust me been there done that many many times)

As per the seroquil, I don't understand why they're changing it just due to the sleep issue. It really doesn't take that long to get used to the dose to where you can take it and have a normal sleep cycle, or at least it didn't for me. Now at first.....yeah, I did have trouble shaking off the groggy, but after a few months I was back at my 6-7 hr sleep cycle.....and I was taking trazadone with it. lol Not everyone reacts well with abilify, sometimes it creates more issues than it helps, as can be the case with most medications. Nichole did well on it, but I've known others who got much worse instead of better. Know what I mean??

Know that I'm keeping you and your family in my prayers.

 

[Dixies_fire]

Hound dog- personally I think he got better at handling the seraquil but he doesn't feel that way. He can "fight" the seraquil off and stay up a little later but it's a killer as far as our sex life goes and getting up in the morning is still very hard but can be done. Personally ifrom what I have noticed I prefer his smaller dose of seraquil but taken consistently every day like he should! It makes a big difference. I haven't seem anything good with the increase of the abilify but I can't say for sure it's the increased abilify creating the problem either as since the doctor told him he wanted to wean the seraquil he's been trying to speed the process and not taking it the way he should. I have said several times as well as reiterated this morning that I believe the seraquil is something we need to keep. The seraquil is a antipsychotic or at least that is why he takes it, it keeps him from seeing things that aren't there, he says he has not been seeing things as long as he keeps the seraquil in his system some what but I see a marked difference in his behavior when he doesn't take it every day.
He will be out of the house until Thursday from what they are saying. I ^***hope^**** he is allowed to come home them as they held him for 20 some odd days the other time he was taken away from home. He is not at the psychiatric hospital and the mp's said he only had to be gone 24 hours but this is where his commander who is a butt hat, has discretion. So I'm hoping.

I'm not ignoring anyone else's post I'm just sitting back and reading and letting it sink in a bit, so please believe me I am thankful for responses and not offended.

 

[FlowerGarden]

I don't have any advice but thinking of you and sending hugs.

 

[Liahona]

Sorry I haven't responded before. difficult children are being more difficult child than normal. You know about my husband and him pushing difficult child 1. He also has other problems with money, kids, work, school, church, extended family, you get the idea. Lots of problems. He is also trying as hard as he can. A few months after we got married he started losing his hair in round patches because of the stress. Just 2 days ago I noticed new spots. And he is changing, but very slowly. And he is incredibly loyal to me. He has stood by me when no one else in the world would. There are some issues that I will divorce him over. Money being one of them. He will go on spending sprees when he gets stressed out and spend thousands of $. This leaves us with nothing for diapers, food, or bills, and it takes months to recover from. Now when he gets paid I put it into an account he can't get to. I pay bills from that account. It isn't a husband proof plan, but so far it is working for us. Another issue I would divorce him for is his recent behavior with the kids. Talking about it more with him than I already have won't do squat. After his school is done I am going to set up an appointment with a therapist for Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) adults and if he goes he can be married. I think he will go.

I wouldn't divorce him over most of the issues he has just the ones that make it so we can't function as a family. And even those I will explore every other possiblitly and give him every chance to change first. Just like he has with me and my issues.

Someone to think about as well is mr.lewis. If you divorce he will probably have visitation. How will your husband do? Isn't your husband also still recovering from head surgery? Did they find out what was causing him to act out? Could you and husband agree before hand that if you need a break from him that you and the kids will go for a walk but that you will come back and talk about the issue more calmly? Would that work or would he just be more agitated when you get back? Are there other behavior strategies you and husband could use to lessen or stop the acting out?

Anything emotional I know we will fight on is done through email. Lots easier to take out the emotion.

You and your family will be in my prayers.

 

[HaoZi]

Just now seeing this, sorry hon.

Part of medications is the right medications, part is proper compliance to medications. Sounds like something is going wrong here on both counts to me, but that's just my gut. Abilify is also an a-typical antipsychotic, but it may not be the right medication for him. Without him taking his medications correctly, there's no way to be certain if it is or not. He may well need a balance of both medications. He might need only one. Again, without him taking the medication(s) properly, there's no way to be certain.

 

[Dixies_fire]

Liahona- he had the surgery a little less then a month ago and it has not produced much of a change besides him not being in so much pain and not being so very very very easy to agitate. His blood pressure is still high and no one cares.
I have talked to him before about needing to get away from him during big fights, intellectually he agrees it is not a bad idea, emotionally it is a different story.

There isn't really an account he has no access to. I have 3 accounts his mine and ours, ours has a savings account an empty one. But while he was drinking he would terrorize me till I gave him the debit card to my account, and though he isn't drinking now and in general much easier to live with I don't want to go through anything similar ever again.

His immediate wants out weigh the needs of the family. I can sort of understand splurging a little on pay day or when we have money, but there are a lot of things I need right now that I am refraining from buying anything. When I first moved here he was used to s both having a decent income we always had money for frivolous things, even while I was on unemployment we had cash. I didn't ever get a chance to buy the things I needed because he was either at work or drunk until February when he had the break down I could not leave any of the 3 kids with him for me to get the things I needed and if there was a surplus he made sure he drank it away. I have been off unemployment for several months, I could apply for the extension but its pointless to me because I can not work here right now. I could apply for several jobs that are over 50,000 range based off of my experience in the military, but I don't have money to stick mr Lewis in day care this would be a career that would be very hard to leave because its a lot of money. I don't want to stay here when he gets out of the military we don't know how long he's going to stay in. I want to go "home" wherever home is be near people who know me and care about me who can offer some support. I realize I can not depend on hubs there may always be times when I don't want to leave him with the children. I obviously need to go back to work I can not stand a man having dominion over me, I thought I could handle it but I can not.
We have talked about getting divorced before, he feels no obligation to help me leave him or take all of the things I brought with me to the marriage which is most everything. All of these things I earned before we were married, I am very touchy about this stuff because my ex walked out and left me sleeping on a floor at one point and all the things I have and everything I've done was being built up from that point.

If I left he would surely want to see mr. Lewis but I can almost guarantee it wouldn't happen if I left here I'd e going to Oklahoma a state he has no ties to, I doubt he would move there just to be near his son. He would probably move back to Ohio if he didn't kill himself first. He has not threatened to kill himself but he is aware he has nothing and no one outside of this family, me, my kids, our son. He would not have a career there are no jobs in the city he is from it is a big drug town black hole, my step sons are there with his parents but he is really not prepared to parent two four year old that have no emotional connection to him at all, they have never been able to visit him out of state he has only been allowed to see them when he took leave and trekked home for a few days and even then had limited availability to them. We were seeking custody because they had finally FINALLY been taken away from the mother, we spent 2000 dollars driving all the way over there and all the way back, this was not a lavish trip by any means we did not blow money getting there or coming home we paid bills and barely covered gas and stayed with his parents and almost all came down with pneumonia there by because she wouldn't turn the heat on. But that is neither here nor there.

He came home fell apart. And everything has been touch and go for months since then.

Other behavior strategies hmmm... Well when he drank I spent all my time in our bedroom avoided him like The plague.

But the bad part about this is. Most of the time he's great he could be totally normal one second and I could say anything negative And it may or may not produce an out burst. And negative is a relative term. I didn't attack him when I asked him why he spent our last twenty dollars, but I did ask because it needed to be asked. I can ask him about the truck and what effort he has made getting it sold and he could be fine with that four or five times and then the last time blow up because he knows he really hasn't done anything to try To get the thing sold and is tired of being pushed.

Now I tried to sell that truck by myself but it has many specialty parts and things that justifies why we want to sell it for the 5000 we are asking. He really needs to handle it.

I've talked to his therapist and the inspector general an jag and even our congressman and dragged him to talk to these people and forced him to talk to people he didn't want to talk to. Me calling and reporting his medical condition to the hospital 4 times is the only reason he got surgery at all!

He recently like a week ago accepted the fact he was going to have to make an effort he sent off the 1500 letter, cleaned the truck took pictures wrote another ad for Craigslist and finally made a dentist appointment so he could get his crown that broke repaired (which is a 5000 procedure in the civilian world) he did miss the dentist appointment but said he would go this week to get it rescheduled, before he got removed from the house and probably hasn't done a **** thing.

It feels like a big waste that I went through the alcoholism and the worst parts of his temper to leave now when by comparison he is so much "better" sober and able to take care of himself to some extent and help with the house and parenting. But I'm just defeated. Totally defeated and hopeless and tired and no I don't really think they should of removed him for what he did. He wasn't hurting me. But I'm tired of this **** in my life.

 

[Liahona]

So if I'm reading this right you never know when he is going to explode and you never know how bad it is going to be when he does. So you are walking on eggshells all the time and can't trust him.

Have you considered separation? Where you are still married and it might work, but you aren't coming back until he gets himself together. What do his dr.s say about his behavior? Or is he going to have to go to a private dr. not from the VA to get good treatment?

Something to look into: the state here pays for low income people to put their kids in daycare so they can go to work.

 

[Dixies_fire]

Liahona- sort of. I mean I never know when it's going to happen but it isn't like it happens all the time or every time.
His doctor believes its very manageable with medication and from what I've observed that's true. I was happy with the medication combo before they added the abilify and cut the seraquil. Husband just hates being groggy and going to sleep early which I know does suck for him because he gets up between 5:30 am and 6 to get to work by 6:30 am. He's in bed normally around nine because of the seraquil. But honestly i'd rather him go to bed early then have stressful relations with him. I also think the abilify has killed his ambition to get off the couch. I haven't spoken to the therapist since he started weening off of the seraquil and put him on the abilify.

As for the separation thing.
Well he's not out of the army yet right now according to the state of colorado we make too much to receive assistance like head start(free day care) a one bedroom apartment where I live is about 700.00 a month.

We aren't going to stay here in colorado but I don't know how long we are stuck here for. It would cost a fortune for me to move my own household goods to Oklahoma the army won't move it till he gets orders to leave the army.

We don't know what kind of t doctor he will have in the va yet. They have mental health programs in Tulsa that will allow him to be provided services on a sliding scale depending on our income and at a minimum the va will cover his medications. So I'm not too sure how it will all work out but I think it will work out that he can receive care.

I really think if I left he would lapse into regression he would probably drink or go completely off his medications, possibly get in some serious koi with his command maybe worse maybe not. I feel very strongly that mr. Lewis and to some extent I are the reason he gets up every day and fights it. He is very frightened of me leaving, he would not see a separation as temporary, he would be very convinced that I was going to divorce him no matter what.

He was married for 3 years to someone who refused to live with him, would not consider moving from their home town because her drug connections and family were in their home town resulting in him having next to no relationship with his children.
I was separated in my last marriage and it produced positive results, so I am not knocking it, a separation can save or extend a marriage in the right circumstances. I just don't think these are the right circumstances. It kind of needs to be an all or nothing kind of deal, if I left I would have to be able to accept that not only would my marriage would be over but my husband might not ever really be the same again and my son would likely not have a relationship with his dad who really does love him and worships the ground her crawls on.

Writing that out has helped me reach a decision. I can't leave not yet. I am going to have to work this situation and find a acceptable solution because I really can't accept that I would maybe never speak to him again or that he may never be the same.

I think I need to work on co dependency and talk to his therapist.

I appreciate you talking to me and I am taking everything everyone said under advisement md it's really helped to get my mind wrapped around the choices and likely out comes of each of these choices.

 

[Liahona]

I'm glad to have been one of the sounding boards here. I hope that in 5-10 years you can look back on this time and see that working through this has brought your marriage closer together.